Living proof...

Several good things have happened since I submitted my resignation from the gallery a few weeks ago. I got yet another show acceptance -- this time to Watercolor West, based in Los Angeles and the west coast counterpart to the Transparent Watercolor Society of America. I earned signature status in TWSA about 5 years ago and have been working toward the same in WW. This show marks my third acceptance which is one of the requirements for the signature. So I'm basking in the good feelings that come with this success. The painting that was accepted is one you've seen on this blog already, but here it is again:

"Heirlooms"
10" x 10"
transparent watercolor

Second, I've had feedback from a couple of other bloggers and just feel great about being connected. I've had Jeff Hayes on my blog roll for a while now, but I haven't had the opportunity to chat with him until recently. Thanks, Jeff, for the technical help as well as the encouragement on my art. (Be sure to check out both of his blogs.) I also heard from Jennifer Phillips today. I didn't have time to take more than a brief look at her website and blog, but I like her work and her writing too. I'll definitely stop back for a longer look.

And last, I sold a painting off my website a couple of weeks ago and tried Paypal's invoice setup for the first time. I couldn't be more pleased -- it was easy to use and my buyer had the choice of paying with either a credit card or a debit card without signing up for Paypal. Plus, she didn't have to reveal her financial data to me and I didn't have to worry about keeping information like that secure. Now I'm looking forward to trying their virtual terminal when I do Open Studios next spring. One of my big concerns with leaving the gallery was the loss of credit card processing. I don't have enough sales volume right now to support my own credit card account, but Paypal will let me sidestep that. Loud cheers all around!!!!

When the handwriting on the wall...

starts to glow in the dark, you know you'd better pay attention. A number of marketing projects that I've tried in the last couple of months were beset with difficulties. The co-op gallery I've been in for the last two years recently adopted some policy changes that make it a poor fit for me. And I've been so preoccupied with gallery matters that I haven't been producing enough work for the show circuit, which had been an important part of my artistic life.

So this week, I made the decision to leave the gallery at the end of September and focus on show quality painting. I had two acceptances this past week that boosted my confidence and I have ideas spilling out of my head for new paintings.

The first show I heard from was the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club 112th Annual Exhibition. This painting was selected:

"Out of Service: Old Plow"
20" x 15"
watercolor

Second, I heard from The Artist's Magazine that two of the pieces I submitted to the 2008 Annual Competition were selected as finalists in the Landscape division. "Old Plow" was one, and the other was:

"Moonlit Cactus"
16" x 16"
watercolor

I couldn't be more jazzed. To top it all off, my website is starting to generate interest from collectors. It's a good time to be alive!! And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to work on a painting for a group show that we're hanging this weekend at the gallery

Rare Bird...

"Peck-peck"
6" x 6"
acrylic on gallery-wrap canvas

I had so much fun painting this one! There's just something kind of sassy about this little bird. The bright colors and the fun, cartoony shape go so well together. To top it off, this toy is just plain fun to watch in action. It's very basic, but the hopping and pecking just make me giggle. I have to confess I'm a total eBay addict at this point -- trolling for cute tin toys and silly salt shakers almost daily. It's gotten so a lot of the offerings are sadly predictable, but every once in a while, something like this jumps off the screen. Delightful. Click here to go to the auction and a chance to place your bid.

One more time now...

Been dining on humble pie lately. I had a large serving courtesy of eBay. My first auction ended without a single bid, and I finally had to admit that perhaps I didn't do quite enough research into the finer points of writing a listing title. I've relisted the little snail painting with some revisions to the wording and will be running the auction for 10 additional days. Click here to go to the auction for a chance to place a bid on this cutie:

"Zoom-zoom"
6" x 6"
acrylic on gallery-wrap canvas

The other helping of humble pie came from CafePress. You may recall that I ordered a pair of tote bags printed with two of my recent duck/bird images. Due to some faulty advice, I ended up with very sad, washed out images. But CafePress stood behind their guarantee and I uploaded a new, darker image with the promise of speedy turnaround. The package never arrived. Back to CafePress again where the customer service rep ordered up a reprint. Two days later, I had a second sample set -- of the original faded images!! Aargh!! They printed the wrong file. Once more, CafePress stood behind their guarantee and ordered a duplicate printing of the darker files. Even speedier delivery this time. Alas, the darker files were TOO DARK, and it also became clear that primary colors are much more successful than some of the funky purples and oranges that I like to use. So it's back to Photoshop to see if I can tweak the duck image to print nicely. And just maybe one of the other primary color bird images will print well too. I have to try one more time....

I'm planning to post another painting Friday afternoon. Check back later in the day.

"Zoom-zoom"

6" x 6"
acrylic on gallery-wrap canvas

I'm thrilled to have my first auction underway. This little vintage toy snail was itself an eBay auction purchase. I love the patterned shell and the little wheels and I'm sure it goes faster than any snail known to nature. (A note about the image: my scanner is so sensitive that it picked up the minor variations in the weave of the canvas, giving the wee beastie a rather streaky look. That's not visible when you view the actual painting.)

Click here to go to the auction page.

Almost there...

Hang on just a few more seconds. I've got the auction listing all ready to go, but it seems absurd to have it end at 11:15 p.m. some days from now. So I've saved it and will post sometime tomorrow. Look for this little guy at auction, starting tomorrow:

Zoom-zoom
6" x 6"
acrylic on gallery-wrap canvas

As for the CafePress tote bags: when I was setting up the print files, the online preview image was very dark. I spoke with a customer service rep who told me to adjust the image file until it appeared right on the screen. Sadly, when the bags arrived on Monday, they looked like they'd been through 20 laundry cycles -- the images were so faded and blah. A call back to customer service revealed that instead of telling me to lighten up my print files, the first rep should have reassured me that the actual prints would be MUCH LIGHTER than the online preview. In fact, she probably should have told me to darken up my files. Fortunately, CafePress has a fantastic customer service program and I'll have new bags by week's end, no charge. As soon as I see how they've turned out with my revised print files, I'll either be opening my shop doors or crying in a beer.

Has it been almost a month?

Dear Readers, my apologies. I got myself so exhausted in the preparations for my shows in May that I was a near-zombie for much of June. But I wasn't a complete blob. I did manage to massage my website into the form I'd envisioned at the start and I've ordered some sample tote bags from CafePress, which should arrive tomorrow. If they look as good in real life as they did on the website preview, I'll open my shop and put them up for sale right away. And you'll be the first to know!!

I've also been trying to "educatize" myself about the rules and protocols for selling on eBay. There have been moments when I feel like I'm caught in one of those endlessly regressive mirror images. The first page of a tutorial will have several links to other critical information pages. Each one of those pages will in turn have links to other critical information pages. Each one of those pages will in turn have links to other critical information pages. By the time I reach the last link in the chain, I have completely lost track of what I started out to learn. My friends, this is information overload at its finest. But I am very close to being ready to put my first little painting up for sale. I'm hoping to have a post either tomorrow or Tuesday with a link to my first eBay auction. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I've just started on a painting for a group show at the gallery. I'm really excited about it and will share it with you when I have something other than a few pencil lines on my watercolor paper. I've also got a couple of new-to-me vintage ceramic critters that are just begging to model for their portraits. So off we go...

Patience, my pretties...

Early readers of this blog may recall my near-death struggles with Feedburner. Their use of somewhat non-standard English didn't always help. However, I had to admire the silliness involved in creating the word "troubleshootize" to complete the sequence of operations Feedburner provides for blogs: "analyze, optimize, publicize, monetize, and (of course) troubleshootize."

I promised I'd start posting my 6x6 paintings for auction in a few weeks. That's still the plan. I've set up the Paypal part, but when I started to read about setting up an auction, I soon found myself in a veritable maze of information, much of it labelled "Must reads for newbies" or words to that effect. So as soon as I "educatize" myself in the ways of eBay, I'll be online with some art. Please hang in there.

I'm planning to put my acrylic on canvas paintings up for auction initially, but I may follow that with some small watercolors. Here's a prime candidate:

Cockamamie Cockatoo
6" x 6"
watercolor on Winsor Newton 140 lb. cold-pressed paper

Señor Terremoto and I are off on a little road trip for a few days, but I plan to go into high gear when we get back. Plans are in the works for some CafePress goodies too -- you'll be able to go green with canvas bags that feature vintage tin toys and other delights.

Still alive

In some twist of fate, the weekend for the fine arts festival broke all heat records for this area. A week before, we'd been turning on the heat to take the chill off the house in the morning and we're back to doing that again. But two days before the festival, the winds switched from the prevailing westerly direction to the east, bringing all the heat of central California to our normally temperate area. We set up the booth in near 100 degree heat; the next two days were slightly cooler, but still hot. I had the good luck to get assigned to a partly shady spot at the edge of a cluster of booths and we were able to bring some market umbrellas to add extra shade. There was a steady breeze most of the time, making it seem more like a vacation than work. The show organizers did a fabulous job. Everything ran smoothly, lunch was provided both days, and there were booth sitters to give the artists a break if they wanted one.


I snapped this photo just before opening time the first day. The crowds were lighter than usual this year and people were clearly mindful of the state of the economy, but I had sales nevertheless and a lot of interest in seeing more of my work. Both the show and my gallery are in the same town, so many of the visitors had already seen my gallery show. It was a nice chance to meet some of my patrons.

Meanwhile, the gallery show is in its last week. One of the joys of being in a cooperative gallery is the opportunity to be involved in all aspects of staging a show, including designing a window display. It's a chance to be playful, and especially for this show of vintage toys and silly saltshakers. I scanned the vintage tablecloth from my main show piece of saltshakers – "Heirlooms" – and scattered a couple of dozen rubber duckies on the windowsill, surrounding some of my small paintings. It's been a total kid magnet if the small handprints and noseprints at the bottom of the window are any proof.



The small paintings are from the "Cute as a Bug" series. My plan is to begin posting these paintings for auction in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

Swan song??

Ta-da!! So here's my big surprise, finished just in the nick of time. I put in my first all-nighter since college to get this little fellow done for my show and I'm here to report that I recovered a lot more quickly at 20 than I do now!! This is a snapshot taken under less than perfect lighting conditions, but it came out pretty close to the real thing.

Fe Fi Faux Fowl
30" x 30"
acrylic on canvas

The idea for this painting grew out of the show of small works that we hung last fall. I was one of the people who pushed for that show, so when I chose "Out of the Ordinary" as the theme for my feature show, the logical creative step was to "supersize" the little toys I'd painted in the fall.

I love the concept of taking a very small toy and blowing it up to such a large size, but the technical challenges of painting this in acrylic made for many frustrating moments and a lot of very long painting days. I know that working in oils would have made this a much simpler task, but I have a long history of chemical sensitivity that has made me wary of oil paints. As it turns out, I may have to back away from acrylics too. By the time I finished this piece, I was feeling weird and woozly at the end of every day. At first I thought it was just because of the long hours in the studio, but a few days after I finished it, I opened the sealed palette-keepers that I stored my paints in and the odor of the acrylic just about knocked me over. So, in addition to loving watercolor as a medium, it may truly be the only one I can tolerate. But I'm hoping that if I back off acrylics for a while and only work on small pieces when I start using it again, it may be OK. Acrylic has so many unique properties that I really want to be able to play with it some more. I feel like I've barely begun to discover what it can do.

Now I have to get ready for next weekend's outdoor show. There's a whole bunch of framing to do, prints to make and mat, and assorted other tasks. I've recently redesigned my publicity materials and have to update my booth signage to match. It should be a busy week.

My own personal albatross

"Oh, yeah!" you're saying. "She said she'd be posting more clues to the mystery painting. But a whole week and nada." You have my deepest apologies. I've been painting away until the wee hours and frankly, it seems like the more paint I put on this piece, the farther away I am from completing it. For someone who enjoys 6x6 paintings, I'm way out of my comfort zone here. I have less than a week to finish it and get everything else ready for my show, so you probably won't hear from me until that's all finished. But no more empty promises. I'll put up a proper image when the show is up.

In Progress

Yep! I'm still here -- my computer was in for repairs and I'm painting away on my big surprise for my upcoming show, so I haven't posted for almost a week. Much remains to be done, so I'll be getting back to the studio now, but here's a sneak preview of the painting. Any guesses?


Look for more clues next week...

My Monet period...

Back in the fall, my gallery decided to do a group show of 6x6-inch canvases. I was eager to try my hand at acrylics and decided to experiment with a looser, more impressionistic style after having followed Karin Jurick's blog for a while. Things started out well -- this little snail was my first painting:

Zoom-zoom
6" x 6"
acrylic on canvas

Notice the painterly approach on the shell, the suggestion of treads on the wheels, of light reflected on the face. I was pleased. I started on the second painting:

Buzz-buzz
6" x 6"
acrylic on canvas

Notice the slightly more controlled style! But there are still impressionistic elements in the piece. I started on the third painting:

Waddle-waddle
6" x 6"
acrylic on canvas

OK!! At this point, there's no denying that I've completely returned to my realistic roots. And in only three paintings!! A veritable nano-period in the history of art. Ah, Monet, we hardly knew ye....